Jones, who starred on FOX's
"Alcatraz" last season, joined the show just a few days before appearing with her co-stars Sunday (July 29) at the Television Critics Association press tour. She'll be playing the daughter of a Chicago mobster who moves to Las Vegas to work in a casino's count room.

"I know a lot of scenes for me in the beginning of this will be going head-to-head with
Michael Chiklis [who stars as a newly arrived representative of the mob in Las Vegas circa 1960], and that is exciting to me," Jones says. "To be able to work with someone that's known for the kin of work he does ... and of course the rest of the cast. It's sort of a no-brainer."

"Vegas" executive producer
Greg Walker says Jones' character, Mia Rizzo, will serve a couple of purposes on the show -- including providing a counterpart to
Carrie-Anne Moss. Moss' character, an assistant district attorney, is the only woman with a significant part in the pilot.

"Carrie-Anne had to carry all the female presence in that pilot, and she did an incredible job with it, but that's a heavy burden to bear every episode," Walker says. "For the series, we wanted to bring in someone who had a dynamic female presence -- we have one on the law-enforcement side, and we wanted one on the casino side as well."

Walker says Mia is the only daughter of a "top lieutenant" in the Chicago Outfit, and she was "raised as a son, raised to be someone who can function highly in that world. She comes out to Vegas to try to make her mark."

"Vegas" is set to premiere Tuesday, Sept. 25 on CBS. Jones will first appear in episode 2.